www.DOKweb.net is a portal dedicated to East European documentary film. The news section provides up-to-date information on upcoming and just completed films, interviews with filmmakers and other documentary professionals, in-depth articles exploring the state of documentary filmmaking in various parts of the region, as well as insightful texts on current trends, funding, etc. The portal also boasts the largest published databases of completed and upcoming documentary films from Eastern Europe, an industry directory, as well as trailers and original video content. www.DOKweb.net is IDF´s key online project that provides comprehensive details on all IDF´s activities and links them with general information service.

Founded in 2001, the INSTITUTE OF DOCUMENTARY FILM (IDF) is a non-profit training and networking centre based in Prague, Czech Republic, focused on the support of East European documentary films and their wider promotion. Our activities support filmmakers through all stages of completion – development, funding, production, post-production, and distribution. We aim at individual filmmakers (tailored consultations), groups of carefully selected professionals with projects or films (Ex Oriente Film, East European Forum, East Silver, Doc Launch, etc.), broader professional community (East Doc Platform), as well as the general public (portal www.DOKweb.net). We closely work with key int. festivals, broadcasters, distributors, sales agents, markets, or training initiatives and serve as the GATEWAY TO EAST EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY FILM.

Ex Oriente Film

The last Black Sea pirates live on a far-off beach under the whip and wing of their captain, Jack the Whale. They get by on questionable means in their world heavy with alcohol haze, testosterone and rugged tenderness. At the same time, in a London high-rise, a world-renowned architect sketches a large private marina where the pirates’ lone wooden boat now rests. With strong government backing, it seems that an exclusive green development will span thousands of hectares of what are now protected territories, replacing the pirates’ den. Two diametrically opposite civilizations are about to come head to head, and in their clash will emerge a contemporary story about the choices we make and the treasures we hunt.

Croatia

HUNTING BEARS

Director: Marko Rukavina, Marko PrpićProducer: Jana Śivak, Nukleus U.

Street art has transformed cities all over the world into large galleries that are open to everyone. But there is a problem. This art, often labeled as vandalism, is illegal. Artists use public space without the permission of city authorities, risking heavy fines or even imprisonment. At the same time, public space is littered with huge but meaningless billboards. Our film will show the relationship between city officials, advertising agencies, street artists and the public. It will point out double standards used towards artists and advertisers, different approaches towards the art among taggers. Above all, the film aims to show the beauty of street art changing cities around the world, countering commercial images. The film involves three artists who take the risk of using streets to communicate with wider audience. Although they share the same passion, each of them has a different goal.

Czech Republic

FILTERING MY DESTINY

Director: Tereza TaraProducer: Lubomír Konečný, endorfilm

Filtering My Destiny is a film about kidneys, based on personal experiences of the director herself, following her on the journey from sickness to health and well-being. It shows the physical, mental, symbolic and spiritual aspect of the disease with its sociological and historical implications and puts forward various ways of simple self-treatment inspired by traditional as well as complementary medicine. If there is any chance to heal ourselves without being dependent on pills, we have the right to know it! There are two main storylines in the film. One involves the director as a modern woman, trying to find a way to cure her kidneys, seeing doctors, therapists, scientists, being curious about her body and its function. And then there is the story of her soul that starts to speak as the healing process continues.

The film tells the story of Kytlice, a village situated in the former Sudetenland. The German residents were forced to leave after WWII. The communists built a mental clinic here. But the film talks about the present life of the place. The elementary school has just closed down as there are no children in Kytlice. The glass maker Crystalex, the only legacy left after the Germans and a pride of the Czechs, was shut down due to the global economic crisis. Young people are moving to the city, locals are losing their jobs. The director's family has owned a house here since the 1950s, visiting every summer. Yet winters feel very different, as only a few locals and patients of the local mental clinic stay. Through the director's memories and the artwork of Luděk, an artist and a patient at the clinic, the film captures Kytlice in terms of art brut, as a place where nobody feels at home.

A documentary about the blooming cultural underground scene in the Middle East aimed to introduce different aspects of Arab culture and lifestyle unknown to most people in the Western World. Throughout the Middle East young artists start to emerge and develop new interesting projects in all different fields of culture (music, fashion, arts, etc). They challenge the differences between modern global youth culture and their traditional Arab culture and try to find a way to combine these differences. They not only have to struggle with certain conservative restrictions of their own society but also with prejudices and misinterpretations in the Western world, which leaves them often with a feeling of isolation and being stuck in the middle.

A three-story brick building in the provincial Georgian town of Chokhatauri houses a diverse mix of people. A Chinese man comes out to hang red lanterns in front of his shop. The dentist upstairs in her clean white room sterilizes her instruments. A refugee couple stares out of another window. But at the center of the building is a restaurant whose walls are bright green and orange and where tables are set waiting for customers who rarely come. The film is centered around three characters – the boss, an active waitress always complaining and another, quiet easily controlled waitress. This building is like a chaotic microcosm, a model of the country, with constant demonstrations and opposition rallies. On the backdrop of political events, somehow, all of life is here. Politics is never too far, affecting the isolated lives of those who live and work in the building.

Hungary

DISCO TRANSIT

Director: Gergő Somogyvári Producer: Sára László, Campfilm Ltd.

Disco Transit is about the friendship of two Palestinian refugees on the borderline to adulthood in a Hungarian refugee camp, framed by their preparations for the Saturday night disco. What does this curious western way of entertainment hold for these young men who arrived from a turbulent region and now live on the verge of Europe? A week lasts from Saturday to Saturday - disco to disco - in the Bicske Refugee Camp for the young refugees who wait for papers and employment opportunities. In the narrow interior of Building 10 of the camp, we observe the two friends as they get ready for the weekly event. During this time, we learn about their personalities, perceptions, goals and lifestyles. How do they cope together and with loneliness, with boredom and passivity? Why is it so important for them to go dancing every Saturday night?

Latvia

LARGER THAN LIFE

Director: Gints GrubeProducer: Inese Boka, Mistrus Media Ltd.

A film about one of Europe’s best theatre directors, Latvian-born Alvis Hermanis, and his distinctive directing method, marked by the rejection of classic dramatic material and a search for points of contact between theatre, documentary art and life stories. In his work, Hermanis seeks possibilities for transforming life stories into theatre. Working in different European theatres, he encourages his actors to travel and meet with different people, in order to form a collective work—a play—from their stories. This documentary aims to show and record the secret of story creation: how life takes on its true meaning only in the context of a story. Everyone has a story that they believe characterizes their whole life. In order to illustrate the idea, the film will use the work of Alvis Hermanis and his actors as they develop three different performances in Riga, Moscow and Cologne that capture the process of story creation.

Every change is a transitional momentum within time, caught between past and future. The present moment is there to be faced, with homage to the past, and respect for the future. The transition is eternal, time does not change people. It just unfolds them. Caught in Transition connects a few different stories, distinct, but nonetheless related, as all characters reflect the ‘state of change’, the constant balance between the capability and incapability of transformation. These stories combined create a panorama on the human attempts to handle the unnoticeable mysteries that are generated within every transition.

The Field of Magic – that is what the dump people call the Kariotiškės dump. They work here, build houses, interact with friends, cook, celebrate, grieve, have fun. Theirs is a special subculture that has its own traditions, customs, lifestyle and philosophy. On March 15, 2008 the old dumping ground was closed, and no one is allowed to enter the new one that is surrounded by a tall fence of barbed wire. The struggle for survival begins. This is a long-term observation film that captures everyday existence of the dump people and changes in their lives brought about by the shutdown of the dumping ground. The Field of Magic is a docu-poem that portrays a unique vanishing community, speaking of humanity, human dignity and other values that are so rapidly dying in modern society. The shooting started a couple of months before the closing of the area and it is set to continue till the last person leaves the ground.

This film explores the myth of Dracula in Transylvania and Romania in general. This subject allows us to present Romanian reality of our time, unfolding in an ironic way the stereotypical image of Transylvania that is widespread throughout the world. The film approaches the Dracula myth through the personal stories of its protagonists whose lives have been influenced by the myth or the historical character known as Vlad Dracula. Using these personal stories, we would like to approach topics that reflect on issues concerning the transition of East European societies to market economy. Today, the myth is imported from Hollywookd back to Romania as it tries to adapt to capitalism. In the capitalist world, the Dracula brand means a lot of money. But in exchange of the possibility of exploring this myth, Romanians may be bartering away their history.

In Romania nearly 350,000 children of migrant workers have been living separated from their parents for years. Most of them grow up with relatives, some in shelters, others all by themselves. They suffer severe emotional poverty. Lonesome Springtime sheds a different light on the phenomenon of migration. Over 3 million Romanians have left to work abroad since the country joined the EU. It shows the consequences of migration and globalization on adolescents. The protagonists of Lonesome Springtime are from the Romanian county of Maramuresh where the migration rate is very high. Approximately one half of the teenagers at the local school are left behind by their parents. Though the teens get a lot of modern clothes, money and cell phones, they get to see their parents only during the holidays.

Serbia/Germany

DRAGAN WENDE – WEST BERLIN

Director: Vuk Maksimovič & Lena MüllerProducer: Lena Müller

Vuk is a young Slovako-Serbian filmmaker hoping to make a fresh start in Berlin. Dragan Wende - West Berlin will be a humourous and engaging documentary in which the director has finally moved to Berlin to shoot a film about his legendary uncle. He discovers and confronts his uncle's bizarre and tragicomic world of veteran Yugo-immigrants, fallen millionaires, thieves and hookers. Exploring the time-capsuled and forgotten West Berlin beamed straight from the 1980s, Vuk is both fascinated and repulsed by this microcosm of underdogs. But will he be inevitably sucked into Dragan Wende's grotesque universe? And will Dragan's own Iron Curtains finally be lifted again?

Serbia

RUN FOR LIFE

Director: Mladen MatičevićProducer: Mladen Matičević, Starhill d.o.o.

Run for Life is a story about three Ethiopian athletes who had participated at Podgorica half-marathon in November 2007 and afterwards decided to stay in Serbia and applied for political asylum. When Zoran Molović, a former Yugoslav athletic champion found out about their situation, he took them from the refugee camp, found them accommodation in the village of Pambukovica and became their coach. There the athlets train, wait for Serbian citizenship and hope that one day they will run for Serbia at world competitions. Should they return to Ethiopia, they would face poverty, war, and even jail. This is a film about their expectations, hopes, about their struggle with the situation, sorrow for their families but also about how Serbia will accept them.

Substitutes:Note: The projects are listed alphabetically by country and not in any order of preference.